She is one of the most talked about New York artists of the decade, which did not surprise me after I visited her exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary today. Mika Rottenberg addresses politics and contemporary culture in her art, which is presented in an oddly humorous and extremely surreal way. Engrossed in the first of her films, i was struck with an immediate sense of familiarity, soon realising that i had come across another of her exhibitions at the Guggenheim in Berlin last Summer.
Her videos feature women with extraordinary bodies - very large, very tall, very muscular, very long haired or very long nailed. All make their living through their bodies, perhaps presenting their fictional personas to unusual sexual tastes. These women are performance artists, whose bizarre, repetitive tasks are focused on a particular part of their bodies, the end result usually being rather grotesque. The first film I watched involved women producing a disgusting minimalist style cube, made of food and cosmetics. Cream from tree bark forms masses of rubbery fat. Flowers cause allergic tears, making an overwhelming mass of bread dough to rise. Vegetable pickers poke their arms in holes which are scrubbed and massaged by underground workers. Extreme squeezing and squashing causes sweat to turn into glittery powder. Slightly hard to comprehend until you watch them yourself - make sure you track this artist down.
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